Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Democratic governor of Michigan, 1961-1963; gubernatorial office files, campaign files, papers from his career as state senator and lieutenant governor.

The John B. Swainson collection consists of four subgroups of files: pre-gubernatorial (covering the period of 1943 to 1960), gubernatorial (covering his one-term, two-year tenure as the state's chief executive), post-gubernatorial (covering the years since he left the governor's office, 1963 to 1975), and visual materials.

The great bulk of the collection is the gubernatorial subgroup documenting the last months of Swainson's term as lieutenant governor under Governor G. Mennen Williams, the 1960 campaign for governor, his gubernatorial administration, and his unsuccessful campaign for re-election. The importance of the collection, as with all gubernatorial records, is its documentation of public policy issues of the early 1960s and the relationship of the governor to the legislature, to the heads of the state's various boards and commissions, to the federal government, and to the citizens of Michigan.

Papers of Honorable Theodore R. Bohn, a Michigan Democratic politician and judge for the 3rd Circuit Court of Wayne County, including civil rights legislation and legal materials regarding immigration reform and labor union organizing from the 1950s-1960s.

The Theodore R. Bohn papers is comprised of fourteen folders. The first nine folders contain a variety of materials and formats. The final five folders all contain photographs. This collection contains political correspondence, campaign election materials, photographs, ballots and ephemera from the career of Judge Theodore R. Bohn. Re-election materials and correspondence from Bohn's colleagues are also included, especially material from G. Mennen Williams' various campaigns.

A small run of the Bulletin of the Michigan Committee on Civil Rights is also included, both the state chapter and the Detroit chapter, between the years 1950-1952. In addition, the collection contains pamphlets, speeches and mailings on the subjects of labor organizing, civil rights struggles and resulting anti-discrimination legislation, and immigration policy reform. Also included are newspaper clippings pertaining to the arrests and trials of union leader Jimmy Hoffa in 1967 and 1971.